Up-recycling of waste wood into value-added room temperature phosphorescent materials

Up-recycling waste wood as a source for producing materials is crucial for sustainability. Here, we discovered that in situ thermal curing of melamine-formaldehyde resin (MF) with natural wood enhanced its room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) performance. This enhancement is due to the interaction of MF with the components in wood during the in situ thermal curing process, both covalently and non-covalently, promoting RTP emission of holocellulose and lignin in natural wood. With this discovery, we converted waste wood into RTP materials (R-wood@MF) with a lifetime of 332.5 ms at 530 nm via thermal curing of MF in the presence of recycled wood sources. Moreover, due to the robust interaction between MF and wood, the obtained R-wood@MF exhibited water- and organic solvent-tolerant green RTP emission. As a demonstration of the application, R-wood@MF was employed as an anti-counterfeiting glue and multifunctional optical films. Up-recycling waste wood as a source for producing materials is crucial for sustainability. Here, the authors discover that in situ thermal curing of melamine formaldehyde resin with natural wood enhanced its room temperature phosphorescence performance.